Welcome to the pages of Team SSA - Students Sail Autonomously

The goal of this student project at the Autonomous Systems Lab at ETH Zürich is the design and construction of an unmanned and completely autonomous sailboat called Avalon. The project includes the design of a suitable control system as well as the building of the boat itself. The Microtransat Challenge is set as main goal and design guideline.

We are very happy to announce a new cooperation with Google Zürich. Google employees have the opportunity to spend 20 percent of their time working on projects that are not part of their job description.

It has been a long time since the last news story. Obviously, aiming for 2010 did not work out. Nevertheless, work on Avalon never stopped. As I'm writing this, I'm sitting on our chase boat amidst the Lake of Zurich

After about three weeks of hard work, Avalon is now fully assembled again. With its completely redone and fully waterproof interior, new sail transmission gear, and a slip ring contact that enables the mast to spin infinitely, Avalon has gained great capabilities.